Christ United Presbyterian Church, September 14, 2014 Sermon

Sermon: "How Many"

Genesis 50:15-21; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

How many?  How often?  He wears my patience very thin!

Yip Harburg, the man who wrote “Over the Rainbow,” wrote this little poem:

God made the world in six days flat,
On the seventh, He said, “I’ll rest,”
So He let the thing into orbit swing,
To give it a dry-run test.

A billion years went by, then He
Took a look at the whirling blob;
His spirits fell, as He shrugged, “Ah well,
It was only a six-day job.”

[“Back to the Drawing Board”, E. Y. Harburg]

Have you ever wondered about God’s patience?  We should never mistake God’s blessing us with God’s long suffering patience with us!  The fact that we have the highest standard of living in the world doesn’t necessarily mean that God has blessed us; only that God hasn’t given up on us  -  yet.

One day, old reliable Peter was apparently vexed by someone who kept doing something to bug him.  Maybe he kept borrowing money.  Maybe he kept nagging Peter about something.  Maybe he kept competing with Peter for Jesus’ attention.  Maybe he always looked like a slob.  Maybe he always grabbed as much food from the table as he could and gave no one else a chance at seconds.  Maybe he stole something from Peter or repeatedly assumed that whatever Peter had was his to share.  Whatever it was, Peter’s patience was being stretched very thin. 

Peter knew that he was supposed to forgive people who bothered him.  But Peter was used to the rules that the priests and the Pharisees had dreamed up. 

If a Jew wanted to be pious and righteous, he was supposed to observe laws that were sometimes ridiculous in their detail.  There were 39 categories of activities that were prohibited on the Sabbath.  For example writing was forbidden altogether, and so was cleaning a surface to prepare it for writing.  Even walking was tightly restricted.  Originally thought to be the distance between the center of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, an allowable Sabbath day journey was measured as 2000 cubits, or less than half a mile. 

Maybe this last rule was what Peter had in mind when he asked about the number of times he was required to forgive someone who has “sinned” against him.  Peter is looking for a simple, quantifiable answer.  He knows that he is supposed to forgive, but surely it must have some limit. 

What do you think?  Did Jesus smile and have one of those “Peter, Peter, Peter” looks on his face.  Maybe it was “Oh, Peter.  Bless your heart.”  Some time earlier Jesus had taught them the prayer that says forgive us in the same way that we forgive other people.  Had Peter counted up the number of times God had forgiven him?  Perhaps he believed that he had only offended God 6 times throughout his life.  He was saving up that seventh sin for a really big one! 

Perhaps he simply hadn’t made the connection between God’s forgiveness in his own life and the way he treated others. Perhaps he thought that somehow he was superior to the person whom he thought had sinned against him.  Perhaps he thought that he was God.

You see whenever we think that someone has sinned against us, we assume that we are better than that person.  We no longer live the role of one of God’s creatures – all of whom have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.  Instead we act as if we are God.

Jesus answers Peter saying, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”  First, let’s not quibble.  Some of you may get distracted here and say that you always learned it as “seventy times seven.”  The Greek text says seventy-seven.  So let’s move on from the number to the recognition that what Jesus is saying is that there is no numerical limit.  And there is no limit to the forgiveness given by the Father through the Son. 

Then Jesus does something that isn’t always popular with us.  He talks about punishment.  He tells a parable about a slave whose debt to his king was enormous, but the king showed the slave mercy and released the slave from the debt obligation.  Then what happens?  The forgiven slave confronts another slave who owes him very little compared to what the king had forgiven the first slave.  This first slave – this forgiven slave – has the second slave thrown into prison for not repaying his debt. 

Jesus tells us: “Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”[Matthew 18:35]

“So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

We recite the words of the prayer so casually.  “Forgive us …  as we forgive.”  Do we really want God to treat us as we treat one another?

All three of the scripture readings for this morning deal with this issue.  Joseph’s brothers had plotted to kill him.  They were afraid that he would never forgive them especially NOW that they really needed his help.  But Joseph understood that he was not God.  Listen to what he says:  “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God?  Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good…. [Genesis 50:19-20]”

In Romans, Paul says:  “Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. [Romans 14:4]”  And their own Lord, our own Lord, is the God whom Jesus brings to us.

If the sin of Adam and Eve was the desire to be as God, then our contemporary version of that is failing to forgive each other because as Joseph points out it is God alone who can judge.  If we fail to forgive one another, if we judge and condemn one another we put ourselves in the role of God. 

Neither Jesus nor Paul intended that we not hold one another accountable for our actions in the assembly, the gathering, the family of God’s followers.  We can do this only when we acknowledge that we have no sin … to hide from one another.  We can do this only when we acknowledge that we have all sinned – and keep on sinning – but that we come together before God as equals FORGIVEN by a God whose love is defined by numberless patience.  When we stand together as sinners whose only hope is God’s infinite capacity for love and forgiveness, only then can we look at one another and support each other as we struggle to grow ever closer to the creatures God intended us to be. 

It is only as we gather together as the assembly of God’s people, sinful and forgiven, that we can turn to one another with a love that has the power to allow us to fully participate in that new creation brought to us in the life and death and victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is no one other than our own Lord who judges whether we stand or fall, and that Lord lived for us, died for us, rose for us and daily intercedes for us. 

Amen.